Are There Scriptures That Say...?

Yeah, He did. My more important thought was why didn't Adam? He NEVER had that instinct, right? Is it just because we are "needy" and "dependent" that we sin and become sinners? I think that is the more appropriate question, don't you?

But God changed everything so that it was corrupt and dependent on Him.

That is a plausible explanation. It only leaves out one thing -- that God foreknows all this before He foreordains it. Did you ever plan something and it work out just like you thought it would? God's plans always work out the way He thought they would because He foresaw them, right?

I'm all with the "election" you see but to me it doesn't mean "God chosen" -- it means "God ordained." He foreknows and if there were any "issues," He would take care of them BEFORE ordaining they transpire.

Think about this --- the Israel of Christ's time WAS eschatological Israel. They were actually "hardened" (like Pharoah) by their leaders' rejections. This is the thing about authority -- they needed to accept Him religiously like Adam, "for the people" -- "federally." They choose the secular destiny for the people just like Adam chose the physical destiny (not spiritual) of all mankind.

Now look at Joel 2. They DO turn to Him. Now their secular destiny is with God because the leaders call a fast and turn to God, right?

TC -- have we not gotten any farther than these "Jim Jones CULT suspicions" of me?? Did you read my testimony??

I make it man's responsibility to accept God's proposal of "marriage." Did you abandon all your plans and "cleave" unto your wife when you proposed? Were you "sovereign" or was she when she accepted? You BOTH were sovereign, TC. Please stop alleging issues that have no merit.

skypair

 

"Gross misunderstanding?" Where are you coming from with that? I don't know what you mean by process theology. Did you just make that up?

How does God know something He hasn't thought of yet?

There's a parable on that, TC. Mt 21:38-41 sums it up nicely. Jesus came into town as "King" per Dan 9:26 and who was it collaborated to crucify Him?

Well, I think there is some overlap there, TC. The times of the Gentiles ends at the end of the trib when the the Gentiles quit trampling the outer court of the temple underfoot. The "fulness" of the Gentiles is the pretrib rapture as I understand it.

Have you heard that God married Israel at Sinai? And that Paul spoke of "espousing" the Corinthians to Christ, 2Cor 11:2. How do you think he did that? By offering Christ's "proposal," the gospel, for us to FREELY accept or reject. Have you not "betrothed" yourself to Christ?

skypair

 

Ah! We have "process theology" at FedEx where I work!! "Change or get left behind!" :laugh:

But no, that isn't what I believe.

2. God is not becoming what is ought to be.[/quote] Huh? Which keystrokes did you miss or add??? We aren't talking about God becoming -- we're talking about His creation becoming.

Now it is. At some point in before creation, God foreknew it and incorporated it into His plan.

It seems to be "eternity" where your problem lies. What is eternity? To me, it is time without beginning or end -- but it is still time. The thing that distinguishes time from eternity past is that before time, there was God alone. When He created time, something else had existence besides God. For them to have existence, God had to conceive of them, right?

How do you understand our eternity? Does the "end of time" designate no more time and no more change? Is "eternal life" devoid of anything but existence? IOW will we be like God's "pet rocks?" Or will we actually continue to interact with one another and with Him forever?

How did it become an "analogical fallacy?" I showed you where it was in scripture both for OT and NT. Is it false because you haven't been "espoused" to Christ? Eph 5 says of the husband-wife relationship (particularly that husband being the "head") "...but I speak concerning Christ and His church." Were you unaware of that as well?

I am enjoying our conversation but I feel as if you aren't thinking about what I am saying very much. Not getting ADD on me, are you? :laugh:

skypair

 

Where does that come from? So creation is NOT "intelligent design" after all? Cause if He knew it all at once and didn't have to think about how He would create angels, earth, man, etc., it would almost force me to believe that someone else created it. Wouldn't if you?

Well, not everything, but God even compares Israel now with His divorced wife as well. There are a lot of correspondences, TC, one of them being the "proposal" and "acceptance."

I found He's aroung pretty much everywhere "getting under foot." :laugh: Two days ago, He was on the golf course with me and gave me a great lesson! I went from double bogying the first 8 holes to playing 2 over par the last 10. I wish He has showed me sooner this year but I admit, I was getting bitter rather than seeking His help. :godisgood:

skypair

 

Hey TC! :wavey:

Actually, there's another reason. God gave it to us in the imagery of Adam -- it is not good for Him to be alone. And beasts -- or in God's case, angels -- don't hack it. They're only 2 dimensional as beasts are before us.

Exactly! But now consider what that means. There was a time befoe time when all this was in His foreknowledge. But there was a time before that that it wasn't even conceived yet so He didn't know it. He knew everything there was to know but it didn't include what would happen in the "fabric" of time.

Think of it this way --- eternity past is not timelessness. It is merely an un-beginning expression of time. Only God is eternal -- everything else has a beginning, including God's foreknowledge.

Well, this comment is totally off track. Do you not believe that God could woo Israel as Christ woos the church to which He is not married yet? God married Israel at Sinai -- Christ marries the church in heaven (after the rapture).

I'm surprised and somewhat disappointed in you not seeing this marriage thing, TC.

It's one thing to know and believe it. It's another to apply it. :saint:

skypair

 

Good. I'm on 64+ hour layover in Newark and I need Christian company! But retiring for good in 8 days makes it bearable. Supposed to close on the house I"m selling Friday and move to TX on Tuesday! Heavenly!

Well, you know there are "big pictures" in scripture too, right? Like 7 days of creation -> 7 X 1000 years to get the KoG back? Adam being alone is just one of the "pictures" God gives us. Take it or leave it. I find it relevant.

Well, just trying to reason through 1) what eternity past is and 2) whether foreknowledge had a beginning. Like what do you think calling God "Alpha and Omega" means?

The beginning of something other than God, I would say. And, of course, before that God "previewed" it all and assembled His plan. But the original thought, in my mind, is fellowship. I mean, you can't even have glory (as you assert) without fellowship, can you?

That Ezek 16 is beautiful! But it does show that Israel grew up and God found "her" beautiful and covenanted (the "marriage" at Sinai, Jer 3:14) with her and made a kingdom of her dressing her in linen and silk. But here in Ezek 16 we see the Jer 3:8 day -- "I had given her [Israel]... a bill of divorcement..." They had sacrificed their literal children, babies, to idols! And God was about to leave her in prospect of the days when He will take her back, Jer 3:15-18! Wow!

You don't appreciate what Paul said? What God said? These are not ridiculous or faulty. Do you believe there is a marriage in heaven per Mt 25:1-13 and wedding feast on the earth afterward, Rev 19:9, Mt 22:1-14? Do you not see that God takes back His wife in Rev 21:1? You know, Calvinism can find imagery in Lazarus resurrection -- why not in these?

I do it mostly to stay in shape. I do the treadmill but it is boring.

skypair

 

Thank you. God seems, since last March, to be setting my face like flint toward these life-changing decisions. Everything --- I mean EVERYTHING --- has fallen into place just exactly when it was needed! I was rehearsing last night every such secular turning point in my life before and there hasn't been a one that was so clear. I guess God just means for me to have more time for BB (to most other BBer's dread :laugh!

Uh... naw. It does sometimes seem like over-allegorization. Maybe reading too much into scripture. I wouldn't use it to prove doctrine but if it appears to coincide with doctrine ... yeah.

This thing about God being alone in eternity and desiring fellowship --- hasn't He exhibited this througout scripture? Hasn't His desire of us been for fellowship? for His wisdom to be in us, for His will to be our will, for us to rejoice in the things that make Him happy? That's why there was an Eve for Adam, a right wife for you, and why Christ will take us as His bride --- that the twain shall be one in everything but personhood.

I'm not sure I understand that concept. The doctrine book I was just reading by Evans (?? don't know his credentials) posited the "time continuum," the first theory you mentioned.

There's only 2 mentions I can find of "fulness of times" -- Gal 4:4 and Eph 1:10. The first seems to speak of the fulness of the dispensation of law and the latter of the fulness of all the dispensations that God is going to carry out in human history. The latter relates, IMO, to Rev 21-22 and 1Cor 15:24-28. I'll quote them below for your consideration (I'm assuming you don't use Instaverse?). But as for God being all the dispensations, maybe that could be reworked where I could understand.

If I am understanding him right, he is of those who see God "standing outside of" time. I don't think you can define the meaning of eternity past and future in that way. I think you can say that there was a time when time bagan to be "counted" according to something -- such as by the creation of the heavens and the earth, Gen 1:1.

But perhaps that is where our concepts of "foreknowledge" diverge. If God exists outside of time, then there is no such thing as "foreknowledge" with Him, right?

Well, that's good. I guess I got ahead of myself in explaining it above through Adam and Eve, husband and wife, etc. then.

Israel chose God in leaving Egypt, TC. Just like we choose God by repenting and turning to Him -- which is required for us to access our salvation, BTW. This is one very clear "ensample" (1Cor 10:11) that we are supposed to apply to ourselves. When they chose to "go with Him," then He took them out with a mighty hand.

I'm sorry you don't understand this "great mystery," TC. (Eph 5:32) You do know that the church is supposed to understand these, don't you? (1Cor 4:1 -- "Let a man so account of us, [1] as of the ministers of Christ, and [2] stewards of the mysteries of God.")

You are also aware of who doesn't understand them, I take it?

Excellent! I did that until about 12 years ago when my neuromas (nerve damage to the balls of my feet) got to me. I still walk 3 miles every other day besides playing golf, though. Thankfully, I haven't had any other physical problems. I've always told my wife, "Come the day I can't walk, just shoot me!"

skypair

 

I'm working on the idea that God WAS three-in-ONE -- as we are now. That is why He had no "fellowship." If you ONE-in-three, He had fellowship with Himself, TC. Do you have good fellowship with yourself? Are you an "island?"

quote]4. Whatever God does, He does according to the good pleasure of His will (Eph 1:11; Ps 115:3).[/quote] Oh, so now He's a selfish God? Let billions burn? fiddle while Rome burns? No, that's a perverse characterization, TC. It isolates 2 verses of scripture and makes a doctrine out of them by misinterpretting them!

Exactly, "whatever that means." We can't truly define terms with indefinite terms.

"Time continuum applies to space-time continuum" -- is God in this space-time continuum with us? I'm trying to get your thoughts because we have obviously come to a term we don't understand the same though we both study scripture. Pls lay do what you do believe so we can discuss.

I thought about an interesting concept last night ---- God is "I AM" but sin came because Lucifer and Adam ad infinitum realized "I am" -- an independent self! How does a "person" deal with that truth in the light of God having/knowing/controlling everything?

So why does scripture use the term "foreknowledge?" It's because in Paul's or any other writer's understanding, there was a "sequence of events" even with God, right?

You are, of course, right in the secular world. He chose them in Abraham, right? He chose all of them in Abraham. But how many of them "dropped what they were doing" and went to the land promised to Abraham and his descendants? TC, there were 400 years of Jews in Egypt and none that we know of went back to claim their inheritance.

Similarly, there are so many Gentiles that have a "open invitation" to Christ -- they are "chosen" if they so desire. Are they waiting for their Moses/Messiah to come? He's come, hasn't He?

I guess you missed my comments about the "great mystery." Care to comment?

skypair

 

Here's my thought --- In eternity past, God was One being, Three in One, like we are. That, to me, is when He was alone. I AM was all there was. All of creation was conceived and God "divided" Himself into 3 Persons for the very purpose of creating, in 3 phases, a people to fellowship with Him eternally.

It's probably the picture you paint as "God's pleasure" that I react to. Let's agree that He does all things according to His will but allows many things to happen that are not His will or pleasure, right?

To the extent that He created time for His purposes, He has bound Himself (and especially when He "visited" us) to time. And in fact, there are certain prophecies that He promised to fulfill in a time certain -- the captivity in Egypt, in Babylon, the coming of the King Jesus in 483 years, etc. Keeping promises is binding, no?

And so the issue of "foreknowledge" becomes even more defined. God did "think this all through" beforehand. He did foreordain His "dealings" with them according to men's decisions and actions.

I think the "I am" is pretty simple. It is realization of self. It's the thing that distinguishes us, so my science teachers said, from the beasts. We have a soul or conscience that is aware of self as distinct from God. It causes "selfishness."

There was a period when Adam was NOT under a microscope -- "challenged." It was before Eve came along! I believe that it was Eve that gave Adam an "alternative" to God. And God had commanded, "for her, man shall leave his Father and mother and cleave unto his wife."

Eve, like us, was tempted and sinned. As husband, what does Adam (or God or Christ) do? Purposely "leave and cleave" in accordance with with God's command. Isn't that an image of God and Christ? Take sin on our behalf so that He might rescue us? Sure, God could destroy us just as Adam could have rejected the fruit and sent Eve into condemnation alone.

Instead, Adam was a HUGE picture of Jesus, wasn't he? He was not deceived but took the fruit anyway since Eve "was a goner." He committed himself to Eve and God committed Himself to Israel (and Christ to the church). WHY? "It is not good that man [nor God] should be alone."

I think you are probably right there. I wish you would understand this whole thing on the level of the "great mystery." Do you remember when you were single? Did you feel "complete?"

And you know, one of the things they say a man needs is adoration. Without that, God is like "one hand clapping," right?

Sorry for you. God deals with men on 3 levels and that is why there are 3 "phases" to salvation -- justification (soul), sanctification (spirit), glorification (body). God's "dealings" are structured that way. Even Israel is described by 3 plants -- olive tree, fig tree, grapevine. Do you comprehend the differences?

Well, as you can see from the previous -- the marriage symbology is HUGE! If you can't see it, you miss what God is doing all this for.
You've missed the "courtship," the "proposal," the "espousal" (remember Mary who was espoused before her marriage?). TC, when do you see the marriage taking place? and where?

skypair

 

It does not continue in our time is the difference, I believe. But if it "tweeks" you fancy, I also believe that in the New Earth God will be One again!

Well, of course not -- so why do you? Why do you accuse me of doing so?

Yes, "woe" if one chooses against God.

So you "are not?" I'm not sure what a statement about God has to do with your comment.

So no "mysteries" come into focus yet, eh? And that doesn't bother you?

"We'll never understand." Are you going to hide behind that all your life? If God said He was lonely, you wouldn't beleive it, right?

Would you be saying the Adam had no "deficiency?" God thought he did. Do you think Adam thought so?

It's not just "analogy," TC. It's MYSTERY. The Jews "stayed within the confines of the biblical data," the "letter," and didn't see the mysteries either! Are you willing to be as "partially blind" as they are?

I'm not saying that you are not saved --- I'm saying that you are not moving forward into the "knowledge and faith of Christ." You are letting some "blind alley" hold you back.

skypair